Cops Probe Maratha Quota Demand Link After Man's Body Found in Pune

A note was found near the body, apparently written by Dattatray Tukaram Shinde, in which he said he would commit suicide by jumping into a river if the Maratha community did not get reservation by August 5.

Representative image.

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Pune: Police on Friday found the mutilated body of a man near a railway track in Pune along with a note which purportedly read that he would commit suicide if the Maharashtra government did not grant reservation to the Maratha community by August 5.

The station master of Daundaj railway station informed the Jejuri police at around 6am about a body lying close to the tracks, a police official said.

The deceased was identified as Dattatray Tukaram Shinde, a resident of Pingori village in Pune's Purandar tehsil. He worked as a driver with a private travel firm in Shirur, police said.

A note was found near the body, apparently written by Shinde, in which he said he would commit suicide by jumping into a river if the Maratha community did not get reservation by August 5, SP Sandip Patil said. “We are investigating whether it is a case of suicide or he was run over by a train,” he said.

In another incident, the police in Wakad detained nine people, who threatened to commit suicide in support of the Maratha reservation demand, as a preventive measure.

They are members of Maratha groups Sambhaji Brigade and Chhava Sanghatana and had threatened to commit suicide on Saturday by jumping off the Pune Collectorate building, a police official said. They also demanded that the state government pay Rs 50 lakh as compensation to the family of Maratha youth Kakasaheb Shinde, 27, who jumped to his death in Godavari River on July 23.

The politically influential Maratha community, which constitutes around 30 per cent of the state’s population, has been agitating for reservation in jobs and education sector.